


More Hours

by Twyd



Series: Hours [2]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Shizuo is rudely awoken by a terrifying phone call.





	More Hours

 

2am. It is 2am, and his phone is ringing. Shizuo feels around for the affronting object, mumbling protests, and holds the screen up to his face. The flea. Strings of curses fall out his mouth, sleep-ridden and nonsensical. Will the flea not even let him  _ sleep _ now? What the hell had he done to deserve this? 

Shizuo considers shutting the phone off, perhaps even chucking it out the window, but he knows he will be left with this bubbling and bubbling rage. He knows he will not get back to sleep. He jabs the call button mid-growl.

“ _ What _ . What the hell do you want?”

He listens. His insides turn to ice as he listens, as the unmistakable sound of crying comes from the other end of the phone. Shizuo sits up unconsciously. It is definitely Izaya, and it is definitely sobs that he hears.

“Izaya?”

He feels sick. The informant is crying in a way Shizuo didn’t think he was capable of, as if he were in terrible pain. 

“ _ Izaya _ .”

His mouth turns metallic. His heart judders in his chest, tight with panic, adrenaline coursing with the need to  _ do _ something.

“What is it, are you hurt? Fucking  _ say _ something.”

Izaya is at that stage of crying, Shizuo can tell, where it is difficult to breathe, let alone speak. Shizuo’s free hand grips the bedframe below him. He is vaguely aware of it contorting in his grip.

He waits a few moments, forcing himself to count backwards from 20, giving Izaya and himself a moment to calm down.

“Is this a joke?” he asks limply, when the sobs don’t cease. He wishes suddenly that it were, that Izaya’s spiteful laugh will jar his ears and that his panic and disrupted sleep would be for nothing, because the relief would be worth it. 

But no laughter comes. Izaya is still crying. Shizuo wonders if the informant has pocket-dialled him with terrible timing, but he sounds like he is close to the phone, sounds like he’s holding it. Shizuo then wonders if it is some sort of hostage situation, but no demands have been made, and why would they call Shizuo of all people, Izaya’s enemy, and penniless to boot?

Shizuo scrubs at his eyes with his free hand, trying to make his brain work.

“Is someone dead? Are you hurt?  _ Tell _ me.”

He might as well be talking to himself. He pulls back the phone and sees that six minutes have passed. Izaya is not going to talk. He’s wasting time. 

“Call Shinra,” he urges the informant. Shinra is his friend, and hell of a lot better in  a crisis than Shizuo. Shizuo would call him himself, but this would mean hanging up on Izaya, or at least putting him on hold, and the thought of abandoning him, even for a minute, fills him with terror. 

“Are you at home?” Shizuo opens his Uber app, keeping the call in the background. “You better be, because I’m coming over.”

Once the car is booked, he puts the phone on speaker and tosses it on the bed, before getting up and putting on the light. Light _hurts_ at this time of the night. He wants nothing more than to crawl back into bed. He throws his clothes on to the sound of Izaya sobbing in the background, mechanically pocketing his keys and wallet before picking up the phone again.

“I’m coming,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “Just hang on, OK?”

He goes outside to wait for a car. On a whim, he runs across the street to a payphone and dials Shinra, keeping his own phone in his other hand, but gets the busy signal. 

The cab arrives. Shizuo sits there with the phone to his ear, listening to his enemy cry, terrified of what he might find. Izaya covered in blood, someone else covered in blood, worse. 

The driver doesn't help: he slows for every red light, although the streets are damn near empty, and Shizuo has to grind his teeth together to keep from screaming at the man.

Once he finally arrives, however, the lobby of Izaya’s apartment lit up, warm and welcoming, Shizuo wants more than anything to run away. Someone could be dead, he doesn’t want to think about who. It could be a kind of impending death, cancer, other terminal diseases, life changing injuries.

Shizuo is thinking this, striding for the elevator, when another thought hits him mid-step, making him freeze almost comically, as in a child’s game of statues.

_ It could be a trap. _

Nothing in the world would get him to Izaya’s apartment at the other’s request, nothing short of a situation like this. Izaya knows him too well.

Shizuo looks at the phone as if this could help him. If it was a trap, it was a very convincing one. But then, Izaya’s traps  _ were _ very convincing. He could be playing a recording of himself crying. He could be about to finish Shizuo off for good.

The elevator chimes merrily, a reminder for him to get in. Shizuo considers going back. He can call Shinra, call an ambulance, call the fucking Samaritans, and leave. 

He listens to Izaya sob. Asking him for reassurance will do no good. 

He swallows, and steps into the elevator. He can fight his way out of anything if he has to, always has and always will. And Izaya will not have the element of surprise over him, not any more.

On the uppermost floor, Izaya’s front door is open a crack, raising his suspicions even more.

Still, he gives a soft knock to announce his arrival before letting himself in. 

There is no trap.

He doesn’t end the call until he is in front of the informant. It is both the same and worse than the way he saw it in his head. Izaya is curled up on the corner of his couch, face puffy, eyes streaming. He wipes his nose and drops the tissue into a wastepaper basket he’d dragged over. His tears come too fast for him to bother wiping. He doesn’t look drunk, or on drugs, or in physical pain, so that left only the options Shizuo had been dreading. Most people saved their breakdowns for middle age, but Izaya had always been too advanced for his own good.

Izaya gives Shizuo a look like he’d been dreading this. 

“I’m sorry.”

He sounds choked, exhausted.

“...it’s OK.” 

For want of anything better to do, Shizuo sits on the floor in front of Izaya, trying to be calm. He wonders if the informant had been crying for hours - he looked like he had - unable to stop, and had eventually called someone out of exhaustion, the way some people only call a doctor when the pain just won’t go away. 

Doctors make him think of Shinra. Shizuo offers to call him.

The informant shakes his head.

“ _ I _  - called him.”

Some of the tension leaves Shizuo’s chest.

“He's on the way?”

Another shake.

“He came - and went.”

Shizuo doesn’t know what to say to this. Izaya gives another futile wipe of his face and gets another tissue.

“What is it?” Shizuo says, as kindly as he can. 

20 minutes pass, in which Izaya doesn’t speak at all. Shizuo wonders if this is all Izaya wanted,  an unspeaking and unquestioning presence until he finally wears himself out. He lowers his eyes and balls up a tissue, looking like a worn out child.

“I’m - very - lonely.”

Something collapses inside Shizuo. He should be angry, he should yell at Izaya for being so self-indulgent, for wasting his time, for making Shizuo think he was dying but he can’t because, underneath it all, he understands. He knows exactly how it feels, can’t berate Izaya for experiencing a pain he knows all too well.This new understanding is as simple and clear as looking into a mirror.

“Izaya,” he sighs. Knowing however is a relief, takes some of the urgency and the edge off his pulse. He leans his head into the arm of the couch. “I get lonely. We all get lonely. It’s OK.”

Now that Izaya’s said it, his sobs seem to subside into a weary after-effect, like the pain is still there but the thorn has been removed. Shizuo wonders dully if Shinra made it to this confession, or if the tears alone sent him running. Shinra is not good at the emotional side of his profession.

Shizuo reaches up blind and gives Izaya’s knee a little squeeze.

“Wait here.”

He goes upstairs and brings Izaya a blanket, fresh tissues, a warm flannel for his eyes. Izaya avoids looking at him.

“Thank you,” he says. 

Shizuo moves back to his position, cross-legged in front of the couch, forehead against the material, wrist dangling over its forearm. He feels blindly for Izaya’s hand with his spare one and hold it. His fingers are cold. Shizuo’s suddenly exhausted, as if he’s absorbed half of the informant’s emotion into himself.

“Why are you doing this?” Izaya’s voice comes, steadier now.

Now it is Shizuo who doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. 

Izaya sniffs.

“You can go if you want to,” he mumbles. “I’m all right.”

Shizuo doesn’t answer this either. He’s not going anywhere.

He falls half-asleep like that, Izaya’s hand in his, his other arm curled awkwardly around him, neck hurting and legs falling asleep.

The informant starts tugging on his hand, too insistently to be ignored.

“Don’t sleep on the floor,” he mumbles.

Shizuo follows the tugs blindly, rolling himself on to the couch, crushing Izaya into the back of it. It takes a few minutes of squirming until they are both comfortable, Izaya in his arms, sobs still catching his breath. The lamp is still on behind him, dim and unobtrusive.

“Go to sleep,” Shizuo mumbles.

With his strength, Shizuo has also had heightened senses, needing his sunglasses for sunny days, noise cancelling headphones for certain places, and now he can practically smell Izaya’s pain, and hates himself for almost bolting. He goes to sleep with this scent in his arms.

-

Izaya is still asleep when Shizuo wakes up, long after dawn, curled into him. Shizuo eases away from him as gently as he can, lets himself slide back to the floor and leans back. After a moment, he reaches over and switches off the lamp.

Izaya starts stirring a few moments later.

“Fuck.”

The fuck is reassuring, sharper than knives even if his voice is still raw. 

“Shizuo,” he says wearily. He drops a hand to Shizuo’s shoulder to get his attention, and Shizuo crosses his arm over his chest to hold it. “Why did you do all that?”

He manages to sound annoyed, trepid, confused and curious all at once, but he doesn't let go of Shizuo’s hand.

Shizuo just shrugs. He tips his head back, still sleepy, eyes closed, holding Izaya’s hand. 

Izaya will be all right. He'll make sure of it.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Urgh, the angst. I don't know why I do this.


End file.
